If you’ve recently strolled around Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo, you may have noticed its icy disposition. Specifically, oddly configured, jagged chunks of ice positioned near plantings surrounding the South Pond.

The introverted bottle gentian is all hue and no cry. This perennial, currently in brief bloom, displays richly violet, bottle-shaped flowers that never open. The corolla (petals) remains closed even when the flower is ready to receive pollinating insects.

Spiders are incredibly diverse, with around 40,000 different species worldwide. Some spiders roam across the ground actively hunting for prey, while others construct complex webs to capture anything unfortunate enough to fly, jump or fall into them.

Researchers at the Urban Wildlife Institute often encounter spiders in the grass or on trees at Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo.

This attractive prairie grass is a tussock, or bunch, grass: it grows as a singular plant in clumps, tufts or bunches. It displays blue and silver-tinted stems and leaves in the spring that turn to lovely shades of wine-red in fall.

Rising from the ground up to 5 feet, this slender perennial of the mint family resembles an Indian mystic’s rope trick, with erect cord-like stems that delicately sway in the breeze. Blue vervain’s green or red stems are actually squarish and four-angled, terminating in flowering spikes. The spikes are densely crowded with scentless, reddish-blue or violet flowers.